It’s hard to tell if the Prime Exclusive Phones that Amazon now sells has been a success for the company. These are the phones that, in exchange for reducing the price by $50 or more, Amazon ships with lockscreen ads and Amazon apps pre-installed. Reviews for the phones have been great, with all models offered so far through the program receiving a 4.1 or better star rating, but Amazon has now dropped the BLU R1 HD from the lineup. They’re also offering the unlocked Moto G for $119.99 today only. That’s $30 off its regular Prime Exclusive price and $80 off the standard version price which doesn’t come with lockscreen ads. Amazon did add the slightly cheaper unlocked Moto G Play for $99.99 earlier this year, so it does seem like the Prime Exclusive Phone program will continue to evolve. Hopefully we’ll see other Android phone manufacturers join the program.

i have two of the BLU R1 HDs and one of the Moto G4. I was able to remove the ads on all three phones.

some posts on xda say that BLU was doing some software updates and then the phone will be back for sale on amazon. i suspect that they are patching the holes that allowed the removal of ads/lockscreen. The new software supposedly may include the promised VoLTE update.

I got a Moto G4 Play from them–works fine (no prob with the ads–hardly see ’em)… might get one for my sister for Xmas. I’ll wait till Black Friday/Cyber Monday to see what they’ve got for how much $$$.

Guess I’m glad I got my BLU R1HD 16gb when I did then… though my guess is they’ll be back once they’ve patched all the “security” issues. I’m in the final stages of finally making the switch from my old iPhone 4S to my BLU R1HD.